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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
To Question the Present
    #23811639 - 11/08/16 03:28 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Questioning the present.

If people say that a personal or meditative goal of theirs is to live in the present, or be in that flow something given, like a wave in the ocean, or whatever fluctuation, or principle of cause and effect; that moment, is not what I would be thinking to question.

But is there something to question in the idea of the present? For instance, in one sense, it is there that time is referred to as being - "presence". In our "presence" we might over identify, for instance or expect others to identify with what we so manifestly are. Are we riding the wave, or are we the wave? Someone might say one or the other. I can think of where a dualism, and concepts, slip in, and I don't think it is wrong, but it can be a preoccupation, so let me try to clarify, the basis of this preoccupation - my own.

I think of how Descartes, asserted a cognitive baseline of much of modern philosophy. He said "I think therefore I am" - cogito ergo sum. But what is this asserting, aside from the self evident concept? Many philosophers have asked, aside from self evidence of the claim, what it asserts.

My speculation, is whether it is self evident presence, or temporal flow.

Even though it is supposed to be a self sufficient argument, it makes sense to think of the arguments leading up to the statement at least for insight. Descartes doubted whole "external" world,(and for the first time, perhaps, it was called that once it was falsified) to get to this statement of an internal experience and for it to be meaningful. In other words, he doubted the reliability of perception and sensation (likewise amplifying their explicit concerns for all subsequent philosophers as possibilities) until purportedly he came to an argument that could not be doubted, that he whittled his real world down to, in the fact that he must be thinking.

I do not think this is so much a good argument, as a popular and influential one. The formal implication, a falsification of the external, which itself unfolds and manifests the external world, from respect to the internal should be considered closely.

For instance, perhaps it is true in a sense that the senses can be unreliable. How exactly though? Descartes suggests his famous thought experiment, argues specifically, that we could be tricked, like by an "evil genius" wiki or to a similar effect we could be dreaming, supposing dreams are specifically deceptive in this concept. To use a more contemporary example, we could be brains in vats, like in the movie the matrix, and our experiences could be deceptive computer programs. It all is similar. But then, formally, this is actually how our conjectures of reality work. What is real but what is the falsification of what is not? Ah to put it that way is bothersome, to realists, but it is true. Think about it. Isn't it interesting that we consider the lucidity of ones perceptions towards "the real world" in a particularly stark possibility of its falsification? For instance, if someone says something, or believes something which does not turn out to be true, in our "real" world, the falseness is almost always appropriated to perception, like falseness is the equivelent of some hallucination or some dishonesty. But are we, when we are mistaken, hallucinating, or holding unjust views, or holding on to lies, really? The unreal seems to be such an offense. What is interesting is our world seems to level to that, and relies on falsification, the dream, or illusion as the contrary to the real. How else could one comport with the real. Well think of Descartes.

But now consider; aside from these engrained conceptions of the real, when we actually find our senses are in a sense unreliable, it is not exactly so reductive to misgiven perception, or lie. When Descartes says imagine we could be dreaming and not be aware of it, and doubt the world like this, this is more a thought experiment, or "intuition pump". It gets us thinking in a certain way, that can be useful. But can you say, sitting here, and reading this, that you are not sure that you are really awake, compared to dreaming?

If you would say I can't quite really know, and I am may be dreaming, I understand in a way. But clarity is crucial, in what is being asserted as this slant of doubt. Can we really deny the senses, in their visceral element, which we know quite well? I'm not saying there is no suggestiveness to the idea, this " thought experiment" but let's be honest. You know you are awake, compared to how you might be dreaming at least. Sure, you could be dreaming in a sense, which you derive from this comparison, but that suggestion that something might transcend waking life, as lucidity transcends dreams, is different than the case of not knowing you are awake reading this, rather than asleep and dreaming, in a common sense way.

But now, what is this transcendental, just mentioned? This supposed "deception of the senses" which we rely on as our positive basis of doubt, makes a little more sense, when you think about it, realistically. Again I think it is difficult to deny the difference between visceral experience of waking life and a dream, even if that is suggestive difference in other ways. I know we have like felt real pain and most likely the pain of sorrow, and real pleasure and happiness in a dream, that wears its way into life the next day. In fact I had that sort of dream last night, out of the blue, but still have never felt a pinch. Something I have found too is that while I can't falsify my present experience, as waking, sometimes I confuse my past, and memories I have, with dreams and I genuinely can't tell the difference. I think actually this is what is realistically questioned in the senses - and it is not their presence. I can doubt my perceptual experience, as an experience if it is in the past. In that sense, the senses can be unreliable, just like Descartes says. Likewise the recording or ascription of the world, whether it is memory or the collective scientific approach of recording data, is what presents the horizon of doubt. This was my first real hint that the truth of these famous cartesian meditations is not in the present/presence, but in temporality, which is different than the lived moment. 

From his method of doubt, Descartes works to what can't be doubted, a proposition "I think therefore I am". This is said to be an argument for the presence of thought. But is it? Which is the premise, by the way, I think, or I am? Could someone tell me what comes first and what follows, and why call this one singular thing. Oh, I do notice there is a coherent circular motion. Yes if you are, you might well be thinking, or if you are thinking you might even more certainly be, but both these ideas intractably suppose "you" in any case so what is the point in establishing this direction? Isn't this spinning, and turning, and self knowing, and recursion, time, rather than presence? And in the sense that it implies presence, where is that presence? I figure I am writing this off the cuff, in a sort of circular motion, but also in a sort of linear stream too that gets from point to point, like coming up for breath. My thought is somewhere between reconciling present with temporal flow, but it is not going to. It is not that I actually question the present either, not the real present. If I did, I'm sure I would find what I questioned was not the present somehow, but something else. But again, I find in this direction there isn't anything actually so self evident anywhere along this way.

"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."

- Zuangzi


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: Kurt] * 1
    #23811666 - 11/08/16 04:25 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

In waking 'reality' I have more frames per time period (second/ minute) and more moments of awareness per scene; while in a dream one frame of perception (a scene) resolves into clarity over several moments, then another tableau resolves, with little actual happening between (except interpolation or feelings), also some edits and repeats of scenes occur within a dream sequence.
When not dreaming I do not edit the scene(s), and perceptions follow activity of the waking world, but when dreaming I often re-dream the scenes.

This may not help your discussion which floats on a kind of uncertainty, and a bounty of under defined ideas - which is very dream like, resolving but still vague.


--------------------
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Invisiblesudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: Kurt] * 1
    #23814185 - 11/08/16 09:17 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

My speculation, is whether it is self evident presence, or temporal flow.




It can be both because we can be aware of self and time meaning they are both evident.

Quote:

until purportedly he came to an argument that could not be doubted, that he whittled his real world down to, in the fact that he must be thinking.




An argument for Dualism that could not be doubted?
Whisper of a dream.

Quote:

For instance, perhaps it is true in a sense that the senses can be unreliable. How exactly though? Descartes suggests his famous thought experiment, argues specifically, that we could be tricked, like by an "evil genius" wiki or to a similar effect we could be dreaming, supposing dreams are specifically deceptive in this concept.




The senses may at times be interpreted in a way that is unreliable but the definitions of words in a culture are set and defined in the history of literature. The simple truth is that different people can interpret the same word differently.

Our senses may be unreliable but our rational and logic is capable of perseverance even is circumstances such as a psychedelic trip.

If anyone has ever had a dream I presume they should know the difference between a dream and waking life. Though memories can blend reality is still clear and objective. E.g. The Sun burns on.

Quote:

I think therefore I am, but what am I?



That's the real question, and I think we'll find the answer is within the context of Dualism.


--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: sudly]
    #23814805 - 11/09/16 12:45 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Thanks for the feedback guys :mushroom2:


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InvisibleDisoRDeR
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: Kurt] * 2
    #23815564 - 11/09/16 08:47 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

I think, therefore I'm wrong.


The present, the self, resolve as a black hole in the centre of a galaxy. In thought we flare perpendicular, expose distinction, expand perspective. Prediction and recall, future and past, angle back upon illumined orbits, about some drifting locus. In dark of dream we paint from our palette. In present, we are motion.





Edited by DisoRDeR (11/09/16 08:51 AM)


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: DisoRDeR]
    #23815598 - 11/09/16 08:58 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

:thumbup::thumbup:


Just throwing this out there:



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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici


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InvisibleDisoRDeR
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #23815671 - 11/09/16 09:22 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

:mindblown:


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: DisoRDeR]
    #23815764 - 11/09/16 10:04 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

DisoRDeR said:
I think, therefore I'm wrong.


The present, the self, resolve as a black hole in the centre of a galaxy. In thought we flare perpendicular, expose distinction, expand perspective. Prediction and recall, future and past, angle back upon illumined orbits, about some drifting locus. In dark of dream we paint from our palette. In present, we are motion.








I like this too


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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: redgreenvines]
    #23816075 - 11/09/16 12:16 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

When I first looked I swear I thought that said "I think therefore I am voting..."


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Offlineakira_akuma
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: DisoRDeR]
    #23816331 - 11/09/16 02:06 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

DisoRDeR said:
I think, therefore I'm wrong.


The present, the self, resolve as a black hole in the centre of a galaxy. In thought we flare perpendicular, expose distinction, expand perspective. Prediction and recall, future and past, angle back upon illumined orbits, about some drifting locus. In dark of dream we paint from our palette. In present, we are motion.






:super:


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Invisiblesudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
Re: To Question the Present [Re: akira_akuma]
    #23816364 - 11/09/16 02:19 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

akira_akuma said:
Quote:

DisoRDeR said:
I think, therefore I'm wrong.


The present, the self, resolve as a black hole in the centre of a galaxy. In thought we flare perpendicular, expose distinction, expand perspective. Prediction and recall, future and past, angle back upon illumined orbits, about some drifting locus. In dark of dream we paint from our palette. In present, we are motion.






:super:




If anything the 'black hole' is the void of mental cognition that resides within the human brain, body and nervous system.


--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: sudly]
    #23816452 - 11/09/16 02:43 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

sudly said:

If anything the 'black hole' is the void of mental cognition that resides within the human brain, body and nervous system.




what the hell are you talking about?


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Offlineakira_akuma
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: redgreenvines]
    #23816482 - 11/09/16 02:51 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

life's a pool, and logic is the drain.


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Invisiblesudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
Re: To Question the Present [Re: akira_akuma]
    #23816533 - 11/09/16 03:08 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

I'm trying to conceptualise what people who believe in mysticism think the human soul is.

I'm trying to introduce the idea of a biological human soul to people who seem more interested in black hole spirits.


--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
Re: To Question the Present [Re: DisoRDeR]
    #23816563 - 11/09/16 03:17 PM (7 years, 2 months ago)

Modos
"Modern"; "Just Now"
Things like dreams, but not quite;
Representationalism by egotism,
The perpendicular compounding into hierarchical;
"Effective" ideas, the simultaneity of being tools and representations,
Trumping the rest,
As Vague as effective,
"Like" a dream.

The Intuition Pump
What is it projecting spiraling outward, but not necessarily being self consistent.
The "Subject" - which becomes half confused as a mode of perceptual relation, as a projected intention, rather than the subject that originally opens itself as subject of study.
A resulting inevitability and necessity - of making subjects into objects.
To compound and compresses, in order to open.

The Phainomenon
The knocks, granting passage.
The sincerity of the "First Person"
Maybe a seller, but maybe just telling a story.
Memory and Unconcealing,
Or the essential, the ἰδέα.
Now the force of Haephestus's half worn hammer,
Meeting the cracks of language.
A glimpse through branching and concealing,
To the Perennial, as always,
And as what's left.


Edited by Kurt (11/09/16 04:27 PM)


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InvisibleThe Blind Ass
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Re: To Question the Present [Re: Kurt]
    #23818471 - 11/10/16 06:30 AM (7 years, 2 months ago)

You can in fact stay lucid throughout the day dream ("waking state") and the night dream ("sleeping state").
The seamless transition from waking to sleeping can actually be followed so as to not slip unconscious(far end of spectrum).  Bringing about such conclusions to my mind that there is really only 2 states: non-lucid dreaming, and lucid dreaming.


--------------------
Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps


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